


Falling in Water

by aliengirlguy



Series: Harry Potter Crossovers [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: AU, M/M, Multi, Slash, Use of plot device from Ranma, powerful!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:15:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliengirlguy/pseuds/aliengirlguy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A certain boy is dragged on vacation with his unhappy about it relatives on vacation where he gets attacked and eventually lost in a foreign country before he is drawn to a place that will change the lives of everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taking a Dip in the Land of the Rising Sun.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a long time fic, I may not always be the best updater.
> 
> "blah" regular speech.  
> :blah: foreign speech.

Chapter 1  


There are things in the world that are very mysterious, this is a given fact.  


Some of these mysterious things are known in their existence, some are not. They could be anything really, from an entity, to a place, to the mystery meat in a high school’s cafeteria.  


It was a certain mysterious thing that no one knew how or when it came about, but the few that did, or would, end up knowing of it, are completely changed, all ways that matter, and though this mystery and one boy who stumbles upon it, many more are fundamentally changed in a chain reaction that shifts the very world.  


In this case, in the beginning, this mysterious cataylist is a small valley, a patch of ground hidden by all means of tracking and even seeing. The valley was home to numerous, various-sized springs, each marked with a tall bamboo sticks. This particular valley was shrouded in a perpetual mist, and was maintained by an old man who wore faded off white cloths and was the unofficial tour guide of the valley for the few times when the springs did managed to lure in guests that didn’t immediately drown in its waters.  


The old man, who was so old that he had long even forgot his name, merely considered himself the Caretaker, eventually taking on the title as his nom de plume. Unlike many humans, the fellow enjoyed his lot in life. He liked the quiet solitude and tending to his precious springs. He often composed stories and poetry, and pondered philosophy. He perfected the art of tea making, herbology, and many other fields that could be taken advantage of in his perpetual and permanent enchanted setting. He did not look at his long unceasing immortal existence as something to be endured, but to embraced to the fullest extent that only his mind's own barriers could stop, and thus he sought to always push himself passed the logic of things.

For others who partook of his valley, It was a less then pleasant, and often traumatic experience, and a fleeting moment of sociability on part of the Caretaker to excite things from time to time. of course its various drowning victims courtesy of the numerous springs, caused the greatest trouble to those who were unfortunate enough to stumble upon the valley, which had aptly earned its title of Vally of Cursed Springs. No one who had ever entered the valley, who didn’t die at least, ever left the same person they were when they entered.  


Caretaker didn’t usually get many visitors, as one could guess, but he remembered every tragic tale of every spring, ready to divulge the brief histories for whatever spring some unfortunate soul had splashed out of.  


He was quite pleased one day when the mists parted and revealed a skinny boy, obviously foreign, and not of sustainable means, judging by his tiny, to skinny body and over large ragged cloths and carried a faded red satchel, it didn’t look like it was holding much, if anything at all.  


'Another visitor, how wonderful! I can try out my latest tea blend!' Why it had only been a decade past when that boy with the glasses fell into the spring of drowned duck, and before that so many young visitors had known Caretaker's hospitality; that had been a good decade. This century was turning out to be very busy indeed!  


Caretaker turned his rambling thoughts back to the boy, who looked like he had been journeying for a while as well, weaving and panting with a glazed look about him.  


Caretaker smoked his favorite pipe as he observed the poor lad as he weaved deeper and deeper ever nearer to the heart of the springs. His excitement dimmed, it didn’t look like he’d be offering tour guide to the boy, or his latest tea. He sighed, it wasn’t uncommon for suicidal souls to occasionally be attracted by the magic of the cursed springs, and it wasn’t his job to stop anyone of those so affected by the lure of sweet endings that was part and parcel of it. No use talking to a dead person, he had long concluded. He was merely there to observe the final moments to then regale the very sad story when some other person accidentally falls into the boy’s spring.  


He followed the delirious boy at a distance, becoming more and more certain that this might indeed be a case of final resting, but the boy had yet to be tempted to throw himself into any of the springs, some second thoughts making him waver perhaps? Somehow he amazingly avoided just falling in out of sheer exhaustion at the very least, which reluctantly impressed the old man.  


Finally, the boy halted in front of the oldest cursed spring in the entire valley.  


'Now this is interesting', Caretaker raised an eyebrow.  


Occasionally the cursed springs changed up curses once in a while, such as a spring of drowned rat could become a spring of drowned old hag and so on, but this particular spring was the very first cursed spring, the most rare and powerful of tragic deaths, and had never seen a visitor on its shore by drowned or victim.  


Until now that is.  


The caretaker wondered then if maybe he should intervene, for the first time ever, at least enough to direct the boy to a less rare cursed spring, maybe the neighboring spring of drowned horse? there was something wrong in his mind about the first of them all becoming something else, sacrilegious in fact. But before he could make a decision either way, the boy stumbled on a jutting rock and tripped directly into the perfectly round, azure blue waters with a resounding splash and a scream.  


Well…that was that then, he slumped.  


He felt his grizzly eyebrows rise then his eyes widened as he realized that the magical glow of the cursed spring was growing brighter than usual, not the glow of changing curses, or the the usal glow of being cursed. Caretaker had enough time to cover his eyes and dive behind a boulder, duck and cover as the entire valley exploded in blinding white brilliance.  


By the time the light had finally died and the caretaker felt it was safe to peek around, he found a body lying on the shore of the spring, whose waters were calm and serene again.  


“Well, well,” he mumbled to himself, “that was a light show, the spring's first I suppose, guess there was a lot of pent up energy" he poked the body with a stick, said body groaned, "so it’s a victim, not a drowned, how interesting.”  


He carefully slung the recumbent child over his shoulder and slouched away from the heart of the springs, it seemed that he would have quite a story to tell, oh yes indeed.  


Ooo ooo ooo  


Harry James Potter was not what one would call lucky.  


His parents had been no good people who had drunk alcohol and died in a car crash, leaving Harry just a scar as a memento.  


Oh sure, he had living family that took him in, the Dursleys, a family of three that liked to think of itself as just three except for the occasional four when Mr. Dursley’s sister visited.  


Harry knew it could be worse, his uncle delighted in threatening him of how it could be worse, and how he should be grateful for their charity. There was never a four or a five when Harry was with them.  


Harry supposed he might be called ungrateful, as at times, his chest burned with jealousy when his cousin, Dudley was praised and rewarded while Harry was snubbed, demeaned, and otherwise made to feel the exact opposite of a welcome family member.  


Unlike other children his age, he had long planned out what he was going to do as soon as he was old enough to do it. He was going to get the best marks he could manage, once he started high school, which he knew would be separate from his cousin, as the Durselys would not think to send the Freak to his Uncle’s alma mater, a private school called Smeltings. The Dursely’s always accused him of cheating when he got better marks then his cousin, who was in the same class as Harry in Elementary school. Harry was always careful to match his marks with Dudley’s to avoid any more punishments for cheating. Because being a freak, he was obviously beneath their precious normal Dudders and that included intelligence.  


Yes, with them being in separate schools the Dursleys would no longer care about his report cards, and he could be free to work as hard as he wanted so he was ready to impress when he went out to look for work as soon as he was old enough to be accepted into an apprenticeship.  


Harry had no aspirations to be anything more than a repair man or laborer, or even a hair dresser. He was looking forward to living alone in a small apartment, maybe with a pet, a TV and an actual bed.  


It was a small dream by many peoples standards, but it was heaven for Harry, in fact, with his 11th birthday in a few months, his Next school year started at Stonewall Academy, while Dudley would be attending elsewhere. All he had to do was endure a little longer then he would be able to do things like join clubs, study groups, and maybe, if he pushed his poor luck as it is, a friend.  


Then it was announced that, in celebration of Dudder’s last summer before he was to begin his first strides in becoming a man, the family would go somewhere out of the country for the annual Dursley family vacation while Harry would be spending a relatively peaceful few weeks at Mrs. Figgs house.  


The tickets had been bought, the new travel wardrobe had been purchased, and all other necessities met.  


Then, 4 days before the big day, Mrs. Figg tripped over one of her numerous cats and broke her leg.  


She was unable to take Harry, as she would be visiting a cousin who would be helping her during her recovery and the Dursley’s had no one else to palm off their green eyed burden. Even Marge was out of town attending a dog convention.  


The Dursleys ranted and raved over it, but finally saw that they had no choice. And Dudley was finally appeased with an extra wad of spending money and a new hand held video game for the plane ride.  


Since Harry was going to be out in public, Petunia had grudgingly handed over some better quality of the second hand cast offs of his cousin’s and an actual belt, instead of the usual frayed rope. Harry had acquired himself an old faded red satchel from the attic as well as a navy wool poncho with wooden beads after his aunt had given him permission to take a few things from the most dusty and neglected boxes in the attic (after being ordered to clean it).  


Harry had added a penlight that he had found in neighbours garbage that still worked, a spiral notebook that he had filched from a convenience store a few streets away along with a couple boxes of granola bars and a plastic bottle of water.  


Harry was rather pleased with his haul, and had added a few of his special things such as a box of stubby dollar candles, a lighter that, for some reason, never seemed to run out of lighter fluid that his uncle had thrown out when he thought it was empty, an old stone knight on a horse that Harry found in the park, and finally a worn copy of Peter Pan, his favorite story.  


Miraculously, the satchel, faded cherry colored leather with the engraved initials LE on the flap, was able to hold all of these things and still look empty.  


When the day of the trip was at hand, he was handed a passport the his uncle had acquired for him somehow, and gave him a purple faced lecture on his expected behaviors and what would happen to him if he so much as breathed loudly.  


Flying in the coach, while the Dursleys flew first class wasn’t a hardship. He was away from his family, thus able to reread his favorite book in peace, and was even offered a drink of orange juice and a packet of peanuts by the friendly air attendant, and the option of a comic book even, cooing at how unfortunate it was that his family was unable to get him an extra seat with them.  


His seat mate was a balding accountant from Florida who was making a stopover in England on his way, like everyone else, to China. He was a nervous flyer and finally left Harry in peace when his sedatives kicked in. This left Harry to discreetly squirrel away a shiny silver pen sticking out of the man’s pocket, fairly certain that the man would not notice that it was missing for the time Harry would be in his presence.  


Harry knew that what he did was not necessarily a good thing, but he had long ago come to figure he was more taking what he needed really. In this case, a pen would be handy for when he started at Stonewall, since his relatives were not likely to supply him with anything much in the way of supplies, he had long since relaxed over the issue. After all, the neighborhood, thanks to his relatives, already accused him of being a no good hoodlum that the Dursleys took in out of the goodness of their hearts, and while it didn’t really help him, the fact that no one would put it past him to nick things, left him with a certain lack of needing to impress anyone.  


He thought himself more as a survivalist then a thief anyway.  


During the flight, Harry enjoyed a small in-flight meal of a baloney sandwich, and another offering of juice and nuts which Harry took advantage of, slipping the nuts way for later, and accepted a box of crayons, though not the coloring book, and shyly even pushed his luck and got an old _Cat Fancy_ magazine that had been on the trolley, setting back to enjoy a few amusing articles.  


When they landed, Harry bagged his latest treasures and managed to find his relatives before they could completely abandon him in the bustling airport.  


The Dursleys and Harry took a taxi to a modest hotel that Vernon had booked, though Harry was unceremoniously given a handful of local currency and told to use the human locker building across the street.  


Much to Harry’s delight, it turned out that his uncle, more unfamiliar with the local currency then he thought, had given him more than he had been planning. Harry had been fortunate enough to find a bookstore in the hotel that had a book for foreign English travelers. He had pocketed this book while the cashier was distracted by a nosy woman over the price of a dress. The book was a definite life saver, especially explaining the currency use.  


Harry knew, though, that he would have to make it last, as he had 2 weeks to survive on his own. His uncle’s order had been specific in that he didn’t want to see Harry until the end of the 2 weeks when it was time to go. It had been implied that he would be happy to leave him in China if Harry wasn’t there when the Dursleys time to go arrived. In fact, Harry rather thought his family was hoping that he met some unfortunate end, or was kidnapped for nefarious purposes or some such thing.  


He was in a rather busy area of Hong Kong, so it wasn’t too difficult to pick a few pockets, swipe a fruit or rice bun or drink box from a loosely held grocery bag.  


In fact, he began to rather enjoy his time, wandering the streets near the hotel, and curling up at night, wrapped in his shawl, using the satchel and an extra shirt as a pillow.  


It was a week into the vacation that Harry’s bad luck finally found him again.  


He had been wandering, perhaps stupidly so, he would think later, into a quieter area, away from the hustle and bustle of people, looking for a nook to enjoy a recently nicked pork bun. The sun had just set, and the air had taken on a surprising chill all of a sudden.  


That was when the women seemed to melt out of the shadows. Willowy, almost doll like countenance, with almond shaped eyes and long flowing inky hair, dressed in a slinky red cocktail dress.  


The boy and woman froze, noticing each other. Then the woman smiled.  


_:My, My, I had not expected such good fortune as a meal finding me mere moments after stepping out for a bite to eat:_

  


Harry didn’t understand what she said, but the way that she sashayed towards him, backing him into a wall, a look of hungry anticipation clear on her tastefully painted face lead Harry to believe that he was in a whole heap of trouble.  


She leaned down (he was indeed rather small) and crooned.  


_:What an utterly delectable little boy you are:,/i > she raised a claw-like ruby finger nail, stroking the tip down one of Harry’s cheeks, _:how utterly adorable you look in your fear! I think I might just keep you after I gobble just enough of you up. My nest could use a touch of youth:_  
_

Harry gasped, his fear rising further when the nail dug painfully into his flesh, drawing blood.  


 _:Mmmm…:_ the women purred _:your blood smells absolutely divine!:_

  


She bent down in a blurring motion and swiped her pink lounge down his face, lapping at the blood, then pulling back as her head fell back with a rapturous groan, eyes rolling back into her had.  


Harry, to terrified to be either embarrassed or appalled, took advantage of the woman’s distraction and slipped out of her dominating presence and slackened hold, high tailing it as fast as his feet could carry him.  


Unfortunately for Harry, in his panic, it was deeper into the shadows of a network of steadily more decrepit alleys.  


Harry looked back only once and screamed in terror when he spotted the women giving chase, mouth wide open revealing distinctly sharp and pointed teeth more akin to a piranha then a human.  


Harry ran for all he was worth, but despite his lead, the women was gaining on him and he could practically feel the passage of wind as her hands tried to grab him.  


He veered around a corner only to realize he was heading towards a dead end.  


He was trapped.  


A sudden memory flashed before his eyes, a memory of when he was 8, his cousin and his cronies chasing him at school, chasing him towards a dead end, Harry wishing with all his might not to be caught…  


Harry found himself wishing very much, like then, that he was somewhere else, far away from crazy sharp toothed women.  


He felt nails catch in his shirt and then the world disappeared and was replaced by crazy dark colours and the feeling of being squeezed through a straw. He only distantly acknowledged the scream of agony before the world righted around him and he found himself in an unfamiliar rocky forest with trembling body, weak knees, sick stomach and a severed arm at his feet.  


Ooo ooo ooo  


Harry was unsure how long he was lost in the wilderness.  


He saw no roads or fields or anything, just rocks, trees, animals, and brush.  
He stopped counting after the twelfth sunset, and his meager food supplies finally dwindled to crumbs.  


All he had been doing was walking in one direction and hoping that it eventually lead him to civilization of some sort.  


When the mist came for him in the early evening while he shuffled passed a rocky outcropping at the base of a small mountain, looking for what shelter he could for the night, he was, by that point, delirious from lack of food, exhaustion and exposure to the elements.  


The smell of fresh water was what lured him deeper into the fog and through a hidden pathway. He was unaware of what exactly drew him forward, there was just a sensation in his starved gut that he needed to keep moving, he needed to find…something.  


He became aware of his surroundings when he was submerged in water, and screamed when the light found him, then things went dark and warm and good and he knew no more.


	2. Coming to Terms

Chapter 2

Harry regained consciousness prone on a titani mat, the smell of wood smoke filling his nostrils, surrounded by aged stone walls, reed thatched roof and an old squat man smoking a pipe contentedly as he tended to a large pot of something that smelled delicious.  


“You are awake, good, just in time for supper.”  
The man chuckled at the tired boy’s surprise.

“Don’t be surprised child, you are not the first Englishman to wander into my valley, though it has been awhile I admit…” the man trailed off, humming absently.  


Harry struggled to it up, blushing when he realized he had been stripped of his smelly rags and was draped in a large charcoal colored kimono of all things.

“Your cloths were destroyed in the spring. It is all very interesting, usually the springs don’t destroy things, but then again, that spring has a very old and powerfully sad story attached to it, oh yes!" he stirred the pot, idly tossing in a leek.  


The man tapped the edge of the pot with an old stirring rod and continued rambling “this worthy caretaker found an old kimono that washed onto shore of the spring of drowned girl some centuries back, very sad story, it was the only thing that I had that would fit you.”

Harry wasn’t exactly keen on the idea that he was wearing a dead girls clothing, rather old dead girl’s clothing apparently, but he was used to hand-me downs, and wasn’t the sort to turn down any form of charity, despite its origins, and he was grateful he was dressed instead of naked.  


Harry’s savoir served him a simple fare of broth with onions and leeks and a bit of rice bread and tea which Harry ate gratefully, enjoying every bite and sip of the simple fare while the old man explained to him that he had wandered into the Valley of the Cursed Springs, and how he had found Harry on the shore of one of said springs.

“Very sad story, oh yes,” the old man rambled, “you had the misfortune of falling into Yān sǐ tiānshǐ de chūntiān, oh yes, the Spring of Drowned Angel”.  


At Harry’s clueless look, the man puffed on his long stemmed pipe, Harry not exactly sure what the man was getting at. That was certainly an odd name for a spring, he supposed, then again he came from a country that named a large clock tower Big Ben. It did sound importantly tragic, he supposed.

“Oh,” the boy mumbled finally, concentrating on his tea, it was really good tea, not really sure what to say.  


The old man finally sighed after gathering and cleaning the dishes.  
“I don’t usually linger with the cursed child, I tell the story, explain the rules and send them on their way, that is how it has always been. Sometimes there’s a day or two of tea, after all a fellow consigned to an enchanted domain for centuries on end needs a little bit of amusement, but with the state you are in, and the particular species of curse you now face…well, hospitality must be given, a lot longer than expected, considering your unusual condition.”

“What condition?” Harry asked warily.

“Long ago,” he began, “about 3000 years ago, an angel battled a demon in the air above the very spring you fell in in this very valley.The battle was short, the angel was extremely powerful and strong, but its personality was primarily pacifist, despite its wild and youthful nature, youngest and last angel created by Kami, or God as it is more modernly known. The demon was strong, ruthless and without mercy, stabbing the angel and, as the angel fell to earth dying, he fell directly into the spring,slipped under the waters, then died there. whatever passed for a body for their sort disappearing, as all who disappear after drowning in a cursed spring of the valley.

"Like all who fall into a spring of the valley, anyone who falls into the spring is cursed with the form of what last drowned within its waters. Normally, I would tell you that if you are doused with cold water it is your fate to be turned into that form, and hot water will bring you back to normal, but the power of the spring you fell into is apparently so great, that dousing you with either cold or hot water will not affect your current form.”

Harry blinked slowly as he took a moment to digest what he had been told, then felt something drop in his stomach as he realized that the man was absolutely serious. It couldn’t be true! He reassured himself, after all, there was no such thing as magic, and angels, while part of an acceptable religion by the Dursley’s, were still considered magical creatures, in away, and he’d had it literally pounded into him that there was no such thing as magic and all that implies.  
So there were no such things as angels…right?

‘Just as there is no such thing as murderous sharp toothed women or boys who was running from danger only to find himself another moment later in a place that was mile from said danger?’ His sense of reasoning kicked in almost maliciously, ‘or what about the teacher whose toupee turned blue when you got mad at him, or your hair growing back over night after being nearly shaved bald?’  


Harry felt sick dread fill him, shaking his head as real panic began to rise. 

“No, no, no, nooo…” Harry groaned, grabbing at his hair, his heartbeat rising to a crescendo as realization that the most hated freakishness that the Dursleys accused him of, the rants that magic is not real, were all true, and if that were true…

‘Why not angels? Or cursed springs that turn one into an angel?’  


It was with this realization that was soon followed by an odd, almost hot liquid sensation flowed down his spine, and then the sensation of something emerging from the very fabric of his flesh overwhelmed him.

When the sensations dissipated, Harry fearfully turned his head and spotted large flared wings, glowing blindingly in the golden gloom of twilight.  


Caretaker eyed the shadows of wings that crawled up his walls, even if he could not see them, still blowing on his pipe contentedly as he listened to the sudden storm raging outside. Not overly bothered by the frozen state of awe that the boy was locked into as he stared over his shoulder at something the caretaker could not see completely.

'It seemed the outside world was about to get more interesting,' he mused.

Ooo ooo ooo

Harry was provided with some supplies such as food, the kimono he had awoken in, along with directions to where the man believed the next spot of human civilization might be.  


The caretaker surmised that it would take him a few days to acclimate to his new form and to back up that assumption, Harry had noticed right off that his way of hearing and seeing were vastly improved from before he nearly drowned, and in the time he had been staying and regaining his strength, it had only gotten better.

He had also noticed, after a time, he no longer needed to listen to the man speak English. He had found that the sudden instinctual knowledge of what the man said in any tongue was as clear to him as if he had been born to it. The man knew at least 4 different tongues that he liked to mumbled to himself in as he puttered around, so it was amply tested.

It wasn’t only the old man he understood in whatever language, he had been disturbed one morning to find that he was listening in on bickering over territory of a tree between two birds, and a frog commenting on what a nice day it was to bask and eat flies. For a moment, he had thought there were more people in the valley after all, but when he tottered over to the window he had found that there were only animals, animals that had voices instead of animal sounds.  


That little revelation had made Harry crawl back to his rest area and pull the blankets over his head as he digested this latest evolution of weirdness.

Things were also more intensely vibrant, and everything and anything seemed to have an odd rippling aura that varied in color, size and brightness, filling his mind with strange thoughts like how the birch tree was over 300 years old and never known an ounce of storm damage, while another tree, looking just as similar to a laymen, revealed that it was suffering from the beginnings of tree rot. The things he saw also told him how they would benefit or not benefit the creatures and environment they were in and when he thought of something, like the tree rot in conjuncture with something, like say his aunt Petunia, he suddenly knew that if they ate the mold it would give the woman hives if ingested, and Uncle Vernon better blood flow if he did.

The strange old man, his new sight told him, was not your average human, just like this wasn’t the average valley, and that both were magically linked and had been around longer then the time between the death of the angel and now.

Things also smelled and tasted more intensely, even his skin seemed sensitive to the currents of the air, and the microscopic particles of things in it. In fact, he could feel that a storm was due 4 days from now, with minor winds but a lot of lightening. The air currents also told him that there was a town three days journey from the Valley. He could practically taste the exhaust fumes of civilization.

It had taken nearly a week of near catatonia for the old man to coax him out of his over stimulated brain, and had been kind enough to teach him the basics of meditation to help him begin to control his senses.

After a month with the old man, he was finally physically, and somewhat mentally, capable of leaving the valley, and the two had exchanged cursory goodbyes, as the old man was not one for mushy farewells.

Harry rubbed his temples an hour into his journey from the border of the valley, which had mysteriously dissipated into a cloud of mist, as he sat on a bolder that was composed of materials that had once been other things when China had been a part of one large landmass.

Everything practically sang out its story to him and he was getting a headache as a result. He gripped his satchel, which had fortunately not followed him into the spring but had been dropped a little ways off and gathered up by the caretaker as he struggled to think through the noise of what he should do next.

He could go to the town, get help, and get sent to the British embassy to eventually be sent back to the Dursleys, whom he was sure had long ago returned to Britain and had barely spared a thought for him except maybe what a relief it was that he was gone. Before the cursed springs he might have returned to become exactly that, after all, he’d had a plan, and he needed a roof over his head while he learned to do that, even if he was unwelcome in it.

He was sure that his relatives would not welcome him back, and frankly, he couldn’t see himself returning to them to renew his position as beaten down boy servant. Now though? Now he was something different, someone different and the new him bulked at the old him. Something, some sort of foreign pride that he associated with his angel half that he had never felt before felt appalled at being put in such a position again, as though it would be…a blasphemy.

He raised his head and stared up at the lazily drifting clouds, his wings unfurling and relaxing around him lazily, basking in the sun and enjoying the tickle of grass and wild flowers.  
While he couldn’t understand himself in the way that he understood everything else, it seemed he himself was immune to applying his new power of understanding things on himself, he was intelligent enough to deduce that his body was more resilient than your average human, even if he was still a tiny scrawny thing, he had distinct surety that because of whatever he was, he would not need to worry about all the dangers and terrors that otherwise awaited other homeless little boys such as him.

He nodded to himself and furling his wings, tucking them inside him, flicking crumbs off his overlarge kimono from the lunch he had eaten while he had been thinking, and continued on his journey and though he no longer had a plan for the future, he had to admit, there was something almost thrilling about not having a plan at all and not needing to worry about that. He was free!


	3. Duty and Refusal

Chapter 3

A few months later…

The first day of August, an owl winged its way high above the low lying pollution of a sprawling metropolis. Gleaming skyscrapers and bustling humanity lay out beneath the bird as it winged its way importantly through the miasma of human industry, nearing the end of his journey and looking forward to fulfilling his duty.

The owl was a rather large and distinguished looking Screech owl that had made these sorts of deliveries to many new students over the years.

But the owl had to admit, this particular acceptance letter was perhaps his longest delivery to date. He had once delivered a letter to a student in France, but never so far!

The Post Owl of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry decided that he deserved every bit of juicy bacon that he would undoubtable take from the Great Hall’s tables when he returned with the students response.

China! Humph!

Not that school owls would call landmasses by human names, of course, though if a human happened to be listening to an owls thoughts, it would be the closest translation.

On the letter tied to the owl’s foot was only a name.

Unlike other student letters, this one seemed incapable of holding onto a location. The magical ink was specially designed for addressing student acceptance letters, but had finally gave up and simply wrote:

Harry James Potter,

Somewhere.

Having an address on a letter often helped the post owl’s focus their own unique brand of magic that had the ability to find anyone in the world. This particular brand of magic also increased the speed, strength and endurance of the magical owls compared to their non-magic counterparts.

The post owl though was a rather determined, powerful screech that had yet to fail to deliver a letter, and though the lack of address was a setback, he was still able to hone his magic in on the general direction of where the recipient of the letter was and that told him to fly east and keep on going.

The closer he got, the clearer his path became, until eventually, he exhaustedly landed on an old rusted railing of an abandoned factory.

The Owl observed through the window the recipient of his letter.

It was a boy of small stature, thin and dressed in faded jeans and large pink t-shirt with a smiling cat on the front. He was sitting, recumbent, in the centre of a nest of discarded blankets, cloths and pillows, his eyes closed and hands resting relaxed, on his knees. The screech mused that if the boy were a mouse he would hardly be worth the hunt as he would not even be a worthy mouthful, still he didn’t look unhealthy, in fact the boy practically glowed with health, he was just rather scrawny. The owl also knew right off that what was in there was his recipient, but also not human, oh yes, definitely not human.

The Post Owl had heard of these things of course, it was sung into his owlet fluff while still in the nest along with his brothers and sisters by their sires just as their sires sung the same stories and so on and so forth down through the generations from the first of his ancestors who had come across such a being, even if it was not this one in particular, the screeches very genes instinctively knew what it was.

The owls called them the Burning Listeners.

Beings that saw the beginning of things and understood the voices of things and could also burn things out of existence when one got too good a look at them or were touched by them. Just like what his ancestor had witnessed so long ago happen to another owl that got to close to the creature while it had been in repose in human form and said poor sod had disturbed the creature’s mental musings.

Thus the owl knew, just like his ancestors knew, that should a good owl come across a burning listener, one flew in the other direction.

Unfortunately for this particular valiant postal owl, the compulsion that was part of the magic that made him a postal owl urged him to complete his delivery at all costs once a letter was accepted by him to be delivered.

So with pinfeathers quaking, he unfurled his wings uneasily and flew through an open window and directly for the boy sitting quietly.

Burning emerald eyes opened when he sensed the presence of uneasy eyes on him.

: Hello cousin,: the boy greeted, staring in wide-eyed delight at the unhappy owl.

Harry had seen owls before, but it had been a rare sight at Privet Dr. He had come to call flighted creatures like birds as cousins for the simple fact that lie them, he had feathered wings, even if his feathers weren’t exactly the same, it still made him feel less alone by addressing them as such.

This owl was perched on an old saw horse a few feet away. It was a beautiful bird, healthy golden brown fathers and gleaming gold eyes that watched him wearily.

: I deliver to you: the bird hooted, feathered puffed in agitation, :take it:.

Harry cocked his head as he spotted the letter tied to the bird’s foot.

Harry relieved the bird of his cargo and returned to his seat. The bird remained, reluctantly, obviously awaiting a reply it seemed.

Harry grimaced slightly as his mind was bombarded with the identity of the bird, the various particles of things that it had picked up on its person and the mouse it had eaten a few hours ago, etc.

He could also tell that the owl was distinctly special, different to what its outside projected, Magical.

It was something that he had come to recognize in the world, hidden from the eyes of the mundane, or out in the open but so interweaved into the fabric of existence that no one without Harry’s ability to see would realize it was magical.

After spending a few months traveling from city to city, town to town he had finally been able to lessen the noise of the world enough that he wasn’t overwhelmed, mainly thanks to a book he had stumbled across in a library in one of the towns he had passed through about meditation.

The only thing he could not seem to completely block out was anything magical or touched by magic.

It had only taken him a few weeks to realize that things like an old women reading a book under the cherry blossoms was in fact a middle aged man reading a newspaper with pictures that moved, or a group of children that giggled as they ate candy that was every possible flavour that could be thought of.

There had even been places, small and large, that pulsed and defied the physical laws of space and time, bubbles of intent to hide the inside from those without magic.

Harry had avoided those particular places, to loud and bright and overwhelming with stories and information that was too vibrant for him to block out, all jumbled and hard to make sense of because it was all too much at once.

Now, it seemed, remaining at a distance was not going to be possible completely, because a magical creature had found him.

Harry examined the letter, grimacing as he was bombarded with the letter’s physical origins, the magic of intent to find, and the intent and content of the information the letter contained.

He rubbed his temple as he set the unopened letter down as he pondered how this added to his world view.

So magical humans were called wizards and witches, he had apparently been accepted into a school for them, which meant that he must be a wizard, or had been a wizard. It certainly explained a few things from his past. His relatives most likely had known, now that he thought about it and their rather rabid insistence that there was no such thing as magic, and then calling him a freak.

Had his parents been magical? Or at least one of his parents anyway, given he was pretty certain his mother’s sister was as mundane as one could get.

It certainly explain his satchel though, it must have been his mothers. The magic on the thing had nearly deafened him the first time he had laid eyes upon it when that feature kicked in. He had kept it though, and had found that the qualities of the bag being yelled at him eventually became a sort of white noise, perhaps due to over exposure.

The idea of learning magic was tempting, but he had no idea if he would even be capable of learning like wizards did, or even if he had anything that worked like wizards did. Further, he would not be able to enter into a place that practically screamed at him just from the traces alone on the letter until he got a better handle on his abilities and he sensed that was some time off yet.

No, even if he was capable of doing things the same as wizards could, he wasn’t keen on being in the noisy places until he was able to successfully able to block out the sensory information that came with it.

Besides, what if this magical world discovered what he was?

He had a distinct impression that Angels weren’t overly common, despite the abundant stories about them, he had no idea if there even were other angels out there or how they would react to his presence. Further, the angel that had died in the spring had been killed by a demon. From what he read about both angels and demons, whatever was closer to the truth or not, he didn’t want to be found out as one, or found by either. What if there were demons in the magic world? What if wizards found out what he was and tried to kill him?

: What do I have to do to refuse the acceptance? : he asked the owl finally.

The owl grumbled about prolonging the potential to be flash fried, but finally gave him instructions.

Harry grabbed a spare bit of paper from his spiro and wrote out a refusal of acceptance letter, and added, for good measure, that he was pursuing alternative means of education, just in case they had a thing like mundane about kids not being in school.

He handed the letter back to the owl and the owl took it in his beak and flew off as quickly as he could.

‘Yes,’ the screech thought to himself, ‘I deserve platters of bacon for the rest of my life after this. I better make sure to tell the others at the roost though; some poor friend could never return should he catch the burning listener on a bad day, even if the boy had been perfectly civil, it was still too great a risk.’

Ooo       ooo        ooo

To say that Harry Potters refusal to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was highly unprecedented was to say that Dumbledore ate candy.

The headmaster himself had gone the Dursleys, only to find that the boy was gone, and that they had admitted that the boy had disappeared in China somewhere during a family vacation. Mrs. Figg had yet to return from visiting her sister as she recovered from her injury, so had not realized that Harry Potter had not returned with them.

The headmaster had frantically sent agents with every sort of magical tracking that could be devised to China, but each agent brought back only bad news.

How the boy was avoiding the tracking magic, he was uncertain, even the blood magic! But it was as if the boy had been wiped from the face of existence.

He only comforted himself with the fact that the boy himself had to be the one to refuse the Hogwarts admission, and with his refusal, the boy’s name had left the final register of names to be read for sorting on the first of September. The boy had to be alive and within his own agency for the magic inherent within Hogwarts herself to register the true intent in a refusal letter that arrived in any teachers hand for the boy to no longer be a Hogwarts student.

The only way that the boy had been able to avoid the various tracking spells and the talents of his agents was if the boy had somehow managed to hide himself completely from all means of magical searching which could only be accomplished by being under extremely potent wards or changing his genetic make-up and magical signature so completely that he was a different person. Dumbledore considered that the boy might have been picked up by a powerful personage and taken somewhere that had those wards, for a boy his age would certainly not know how to construct such things, for the second option was certainly completely impossible. After all, a person could change their body, but the magical signature of a person was such a personal, unique quality that no amount of alterations could change it so drastically. Even a creature inheritance didn’t change that.

Still, as time passed, days giving into months then into years, the Headmaster began to wonder if the boy would remain permanently vanished.  


	4. A Shiver

Chapter 4: A Shiver. 

Learning to harness his power wasn’t as hard to as Harry had thought…well, after the initial experience of revelation anyway. 

He’d happened across the key to using his abilities when he had been reading from a travel magazine that had been in some person’s recycling one day, during one of his many flits to one of the various open markets one day. 

He’d been looking at a picture of a large city, bristling with neon lights, the caption reading _Las Vegas, City of Lights, Fun, Fashion, and Non-Stop Action!_. Perhaps a little much for a boy from Surrey, after all, he was still a discombobulated at times surviving in his current Metropolis of wonders. 

Still, Harry couldn’t help suddenly picturing himself hovering over such a place, the lights laid down his feet while his wings carried him through the cool Nevada night, even if he didn’t know how to fly yet. 

He had to admit, the desire to do so was pretty strong, so strong in fact, that when his mental image seemed to take on a life of its own and Harry’s small factory faded away very suddenly to him hovering at least 300 ft above said city, the smell of night dessert air, pollution and humanity, the lights splayed before him like a multi-coloured landscape of neon flowers made of light- he at first, marveled at his own ability to imagine things, but when a sudden roar filled the air and a jet swooped out of the clouds directly for him, causing Harry to suddenly drop out of the machines path, he re-thought his opinion on realistic imagination. 

He was suddenly falling, falling directly towards the lights. 

He had a second to think that either his sense of vivid imagination had been invaded by the postulation of a possible rational scenario by a sadistic part of his mentality, or he really was falling to his doom over Las Vegas after narrowly avoiding being creamed by a Jet liner. 

He very much wanted to be not falling at the moment. 

Suddenly he halted in mid-air. 

His wings were splayed in the air, after flapping about uselessly for a few nerve shattering moments before seeming to figure out how to work, and now lay in correct position to keep him hovering and not splattering into the concrete below. 

Harry took a moment to blink rapidly and catch his breath, waiting for his frantic heart beat to not try to burst through his throat. 

When he was sufficiently calm, reassured that he wasn’t about to be angel boy pancake, he took a moment to consider what exactly had happened. 

He had been sitting in his nest of blankets and tatami mats in an abandoned factory in China reading a travel magazine about big cities in America and happened to imagine himself flying over said city. Then he had been suddenly doing exactly that, and then the jet nearly hit him, and then he was falling, and then he, logically, had wanted to not be falling and suddenly he wasn’t. 

Harry was by no means an unintelligent child, so it wasn’t much of a mental stretch to figure out that the commonality in all those things was. 

He had wanted them to happen. 

He had wanted to be flying over Vegas, he had wanted to not be creamed by the jet, he had wanted to stop falling. 

And all that had happened, because he had wanted it to happen. 

His eyes widened. Was it really that simple? 

Harry decided to test it. 

He focused his thoughts on very much wanting to be sitting in his little nest back in China. 

He suddenly found himself back in the Chinese Factory, sitting in his nest and blinking at the dusty cement walls around him. 

“Okay…” he drawled slowly out loud. 

Then he decided to try something else. 

He screwed his eyes shut and made himself very much want a bag of fresh melon bread, like the kind he had seen in the market he had passed by during his exploring, not a big one, maybe one with five, no six! and...a Bitter Shandy! He had heard Dudley’s friends brag about them once, and seen them share a bottle during recess that Piers had nicked from his older brother. 

When he opened his eyes, he suddenly found his lap full of the very items he had thought about! 

The bottle was even cold! 

He took a few moments to come to grips with what he was facing. 

Somehow, he had the power to fulfil whatever he wanted. 

This both elated and terrified him. 

There had been many times in the past few months were he had wished to never see the Dursley’s ever again, what if he had wiped them from existence?! 

He frantically wished he had a working phone. 

A cellphone appeared in his hand. He stared at it, but only paused for a moment to see if it would work before he dialed the long distance number for the Dursley’s that he had overheard his Aunt Petunia make Dudley memorise in case he got lost. 

He was starting to panic after the third ring, when Petunia’s crisp tone filled his ear. 

“Hello? ” 

Harry, relieved, coughed and tried to lower his voice to sound like an adult, only to be rather surprised at the low baritone that left his lips. 

“Excuse me mame, we are taking a brief census of the people in your area and just want to confirm to the number of people living in your household at present time.” 

“Oh, well…” Petunia huffed, but since it sounded brief and official she answered: 

“There are three people living in my household, myself, my Husband, and my son at present.” 

“Thank you,” Harry said quickly, “that’s all I need.” He hung up quickly. 

When he was done, he set the cellphone, a green shiny metal thing with a little angel wing keychain aside and after cautiously testing his voice, wanting it back to normal, he was relieved that he didn’t sound like some Barry White double. 

So it seemed that he could want something and it would happen, but he had to really want it, not some idle notion that went against his nature, like doing something bad to his relatives, whom though he didn’t like, didn’t necessarily seriously wish anything bad to happen, like death, torture or wiped from existence. 

Harry was rather relieved that his powers had some form of limits. So it wasn’t a power that acted out of idle thoughts then, it required conscious thoughtful will. 

Harry was vastly relieved by this. 

After that incident, it didn’t take him long to figure out the basics for his ability. 

Mainly, he wanted something enough, it happened. 

While many might use this ability for…well, anything, Harry was instinctively weary of just where this power could take him, though, being a repressed underappreciated child, didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun. 

Ooo ooo ooo

In the Barracks of Heaven… 

It was during the usual inspections, an archangel, touring the seraph’s living quarters, as was custom, paused in his discussion with one of his subordinates when something caught his attention, something that flashed briefly, illuminating his grace with an internal flash of warning, something that tasted very powerful and disturbingly familiar, and something that by Father couldn’t be. 

Then the feeling past, and no matter how the archangel cast his senses, he could not find the presence of the new power that had just entered the world, the world of his father’s favored mud monkeys. 

How vexing. 

He made a mental note to send a few agents down to Earth and see if they could find any sign of whatever that had been. 

Ooo ooo ooo

In the opposite direction, in the Pit of Greatest Despair… 

A few rather powerful demons looked up from their idle tortures and ramblings to feel the power of something entering existence. Something very important, before it disappeared just as quickly as it came. 

How delicious. 

The current regent of Hell licked her lips thoughtfully, making a mental note to see if she could get a few demons top side to investigate. 

Even if she could not find this possible new player in the game, she was sure her Lord Lucifer might be interested when he finally awoke, not that she would be around anymore after that, of course, but possible amusements until the big showdown, like something that was powerful enough to make Hell, and she was sure, Heaven, shiver, if only briefly, would be worth looking into. 

Ooo ooo ooo 

A/n: short one, but felt good leaving it there.


End file.
